The Summer Fall
by Starcrossed Butcher
Summary: The angels have fallen, and the world keeps spinning. Human souls are compromised, but where are they going? Sam is dead, so Dean runs. Can Castiel pull him back from the edge, even as he nears it? Can they put the world right, again, even when they're falling apart themselves? Season 8 spoilers. Like everywhere.
1. Fall Out

It's dark.

It's dark because Castiel is blocking out the harsh, painful light from the too-bright every-motel-lamp-ever beside him with his palms. Except that lamp is on dim. And the radio fuzz exacerbating his migraine is two rooms away. And the fibers of his small clothes and suit trousers and the moth-eaten comforter and the threadbare sheets and the springs of the bed press harshly against what may as well be tender, new skin, and it all feels like lying on a bed of nails.

As an angel, Castiel could see—would see—everything anywhere all the time. He could snapshot the globe down to the very molecular structures in an instant and process it all the next. Stripped of his grace, though, his senses are dulled a thousandfold, and yet, each is an overload.

Well. "His" senses. Jimmy's senses. He doesn't know where to draw the line, anymore, if he ever did, if it ever mattered. That place beside his grace, the one he could always tap to check on Jimmy, to glean knowledge of some thitherto unknown social protocol, to seek internal human counsel, it's—not gone, but not open. Cut off. Unavailable. Like a memory that you have only just forgotten, that when you try harder to remember, it only slips further away. He's blocking out the light and sound and touch and smell (aftershave, Dean? It could knock out a rhinoceros) to search for it. No luck.

"Cas" is whispered from a broken-down sofa across the room, but Dean may as well have screamed it into the ex-angel's splitting ears. The reply is a miserable grunt. "Cas, you swear you can't fix him?" Another grunt. "I'm gonna need more than that."

"I swear," says Castiel, "I've told you everything I know, Dean. Now, can we please not speak? It hurts."

Dean complies. Between the two of them lies Sam, staring blank at the ceiling, haggard, gaunt, pallid. There is little time and less to do about it. Dean's earlier sobs, pleading, begging, desperation, it all has dwindled down to silent tears that collect on his jaw and stain his shirt.

"I truly am sorry, Dean."

It's sincere. Earnest.

"I know, Cas."

Then, Sam gasps. Dean scrambles instantly to kneel at his side, clasping hands with his brother and looking so, so... fragile. But Sam makes no other sound.

This new silence has to be filled, and Dean takes it upon himself to do so: "We did it, Buddy. We beat 'em, in the end." It sounds a little like a prayer and a lot like yearning. "Fate. Demons. Angels. Whoever. No one will ever dick with you again." Broken, beaten yearning. "You hear that? You did good, Sammy. You're done. Just rest, now, and I'll see ya later, Kid." The most Sam has moved in the two hours they have been in this motel is now, when his nearly vacant eyes make contact with Dean's. Then, close.

Sam Winchester dies at three minutes past midnight.

* * *

Six hours. Dean rises with the sun. Castiel is... tired.

"I'm out, Cas."

"Dean—"

"I'm done. I'm going to drive as far as I can, and I'm going to bury my brother. And then, it's over."

Castiel sighs but nods. "I agree; that would be for the best. I doubt there is any role I can play in this... new war." Then, Dean isn't meeting his expectant gaze.

"No, Cas," he says, suddenly unnervingly even.

"Your confidence in me is appreciated, but—"

"No, I mean, _no_, Cas."

"Repeating the statement has shed little more light on—"

"This is toxic, Cas." Dean has raised his voice, and Castiel winces with every well-paced syllable. "Us, together; it can only go bad." A sigh. "Worse."

"So what you mean to say is—"

"Good bye, Cas. And good luck."

The screaming tactile-audio-visual assault is drowned out by an overwhelming surge of... Castiel thinks this is what is known as grief, and if he is to confess, it is likely overdue. Still, his only recourse is to sink deeper onto his bed.

Dean collects Sam's body in Silence, then, his belongings, everything they'd brought. Then, he's gone. Castiel feels the urge to... to do _something_. Instead, he whimpers, confused, pitiful, and punctuates the sound with "Goodbye, Dean.

* * *

Castiel recalls a question in human theology—"How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?" It seems that a reasonable model has been erected at the Sioux Falls Greyhound Station. Vessel upon smartly-dressed vessel crowds the walls, the sitting area, the courtesy desk, and each one wears the same dejected, mournful expression. Castiel vaguely wonders where they all are going. Although it's not as though he can help them. He buys a ticket aimed straight for Lebanon.

"You're in luck," his vendoress remarks in all her trained, professionally chipper demeanor. "You'll only have to wait about an hour for the next bus out that way."

Castiel takes another pointed look around at his brothers and replies, "Are they waiting?"

"For what?" she says, voice lowering subtly. "Every one of them came to the desk, and when we asked, 'Where to?' they just... shuffled away."

"For what can they wait, if they do not know what is supposed to come next?"

"Something like that, sir," she says, somewhere between sympathy and curiosity. "And please, if you need anything, Concessions are right over there."

Castiel sees a line forming behind him and moves to quit the desk with a polite, "Thank you." He takes his place amidst the sullen crowd and stares a hundred miles past the sign above his gate.

* * *

Kevin Tran would give anything not to be a prophet. Or Asian. If God hadn't saddled him with this title, he'd be squired away comfortably by his studies in political science or contemporary American literature or, worst case scenario, string performance at Princeton. Or worse worst case scenario, Ann Arbor. He wouldn't flinch at words like tablet or leviathan, and he'd scoff at words like angel and demon (because Dan Brown is, in no uncertain terms, a complete hack).

Of course, if he wasn't Asian, he could just quit.

The recent meteor shower of falling angels says that's one thing he can't do. Still, Sam and Dean haven't come by to delegate his latest assignment, so, as far as he's concerned, he's on vacation, and he is certainly prepared for it. On the flawlessly finished conference table in the main hall of the bunker sits a sandwich, whole wheat break, one leaf of lettuce, one slice of tomato, one slice of American cheese (2%), two slices of turkey. A sandwich, a real, honest to Dawkins Sandwich: it's the first he's more than looked at in, what, two years? Kevin sinks into a cush, leather chair and marvels at it, reverent, awed. This perfect, beckoning stack of divinity and Wonderbread is a testament to God's love and mercy and—

Then, there's a knock at the door. Of freaking course.

* * *

"Layover" is not a word with which Castiel is quite familiar; he supposes it is synonymous with "reminiscence" or, maybe, "guilt." There are many things for which Castiel blames himself. The Fall. Naomi. The Leviathan. But here, in Geneva, Nebraska, Castiel's conscience is weight by a single, grievous transgression: Samandriel.

In yet another a bus station, in yet another spring-loaded, plastic chair upholstered with scratchy tweed, surrounded by more people and angels than he's been since The Flood, Castiel looks down at his hands—his vessel's, no, definitely _his_ hands—and all he sees is the blood on them.

He prays to his father for the first time since he stopped looking for him. He confesses. He begs forgiveness. And then, he swears that no more of of his brothers shall fall by these hands. Silent. Solemn.

When he gets hold of Metatron, he will have to figure something else out.

A voice announces the arrival of his next transfer. He stands and joins the shuffling mass of bodies flocking toward the gate. He doesn't know if the trip would be worse, alone, or better.

* * *

When Kevin Tran opens the bulkhead of the bunker, he expects Sam and/or Dean, or Castiel, or Meg, or anyone besides Crowley looking like he's hung over and painfully sober. Kevin doesn't have his Super-Soaker of Borax-laden holy water, so, instead of attack, he cries out and stumbles backward into a chair. However, contrary to his expectations, Crowley doesn't grab him and blink away. He doesn't raise a hand to him. He fixes him with a single mournful look, then, shuffles into the bunker, silent, eyes glued to the ground, and followed by Cas.

"Do not be alarmed, Kevin Tran." And the Angel gets the Emmy for delivery. "He will not harm you."

Kevin looks frantically from angel to demon and back again, totally not shrieking, "He already harmed me! He's the freaking king of Hell!"

Cas tilts his head in the way that everyone who knows him means he's confused or intrigued. In this case, he's confused. "Dean left him in my charge. He hasn't spoken since we left the church. There is nothing to be done, as long as he remains as he is."

"Left him in your charge?" Okay, so, maybe he's shrieking. "He should have left him in a hole in the ground—he should be dead!"

More confusion. "Sam's task was to save a demon, not to kill one. You knew this. What did you expect to happen?"

Kevin falters, then, quickly stammers, "I—I don't know. I guess I thought that curing a demon would include the killing part. Why couldn't they have picked a different demon?"

"Better the devil you know."

Quickly, the roller coaster of rage is ascending to a peak, again. "But it's still the actual freaking Devil! He's the King of Hell! He killed my girlfriend! My mother! He—he cut off my finger!" And the roller coaster rolls to a stop at the sound of a stifled sob. When Kevin looks toward the source, he sees Crowley standing in a discrete corner, looking particularly small, even for the already small man he wears. Bloodshot eyes leak tears down his face in trails that must have been traveled, before, and often. This is all so very surreal.

Cas moves toward Kevin, close enough to put a hand on his shoulder, then, says softly, "He will not harm you. Crowley shall remain here with us for the foreseeable future. I suggest you become accustomed to his presence. But don't worry. He is not the same man he was."

Kevin is speechless. This is so not okay. Nothing about this is anywhere close. But something's even more off than just Crowley and Castiel, back on the same team after a very frightening story Dean told him, once. No, something is missing, and Kevin has a very, very bad feeling about it.

"Castiel."

"Yes?"

"Where are Sam and Dean?"

Cas's shoulders square visibly. "They... will not be coming back."


	2. Pride Goeth Before

Castiel comes to folded neatly beneath a spartan blanket, heavily pressed into a bed he does not remember entering. Really, he doesn't remember intending to sleep at all, but as he sits up and squints around some room, pitch black and a touch cold, he decides it can't be helped. He recalls his prior experiences in these weak humanized states. He really ought to have seen a crash coming. After all, he hadn't slept since before he'd left South Dakota.

He gropes in the dark for a night table, a lamp, a switch, and soft, yellow light bursts around him, filling the space with its gentle glow. It washes over weapons racks and auto mechanic magazines and classic rock and roll memorabilia and, in the corner wardrobe with the door just slightly ajar, so, so much plaid. Castiel infers that this must be Dean's room. He looks to the adjacent side of the bed and, surely enough, finds a Winchester-shaped imprint in the memory foam remains, dimpling the top cover like longing.

Castiel winces as a pang of loss comes over him, saying to the relative emptiness, "It remembers."

Suddenly, the room is too small. He throws his legs off the mattress and stands—a shiver of part chill and mostly shock to his vessel's (his, his, damn it) mysteriously bare feet—and skitters hastily toward the hall door. When he stops safely on the other side of the door, in the harsh halogen lights of the hall, he considers Jimmy's missing shoes. And, he realizes, Jimmy's missing pants. And Jimmy's missing everything. Instead of these, he discovers, he is bared from feet to a pair of blue knit shorts that stop mid-thigh, which he could swear to recognizing from, more than once, Dean leaping at him in less than polite waking. Which means that, hanging just over it, this must be the only white tee shirt Dean owns without a conspicuous grease stain.

This is weird, but Castiel does not have the presence of mind or will to become as flustered as he ought. Instead, he turns and stumbles toward the kitchen, suddenly famished. For now, he makes a mental note to himself (a practice Sam assured him, at times, helps humans to keep on track) to remember:

Eat.

Wash.

Sleep.

* * *

This isn't the first time Kevin wakes with his head integrally linked to a work desk by a thick rope of drool. It's just a bit early when he jerks to attention from soft thumping down the hall and the subsequent din of a fridge raid in progress. Rubbing the crusty gunk from his eyes and the dried saliva from his mouth, he straightens, stretches in his chair, then, sets about setting the translations and notes before him back into order.

He catches the faintest glint from the corner of his eyes, and then he realizes, Crowley is standing, shoulders hunched, leaning back into the same corner he'd occupied last night, gravely quiet, pensive. Kevin just knows he's up to something. Watching. Waiting for a chance to strike.

"You've been there all night," Kevin rasps in a voice still thick with sleep, wishing it sounded like more of an accusation.

For his part, Crowley just looks over at him and rolls his eyes upward. Kevin follows his gaze and discovers a faint but fairly large devil's trap painted into the cavernous ceiling. His eyes snap back to Crowley, locking eyes with him, challenging him to ask for help, please, God, to ask so that Kevin can just deny him. His challenge, however, is declined as Crowley breaks the staring match to resume looking at, well, his shoes. Or something. Who cares?

Then enters Castiel, a piece of hardened, weeks-old bologna in his mouth and what appear to be a half-eaten KitKat bar, two whole, raw eggs, and a clove of garlic in his hands. He notices Crowley, too, and frowns, bologna falling from his mouth to the floor when sputters the demon's name. He turns to Kevin, and the boy feigns innocence—almost as well as he could bullshit a scholarship essay.

"Kevin, I believe Crowley is caught in a devil's trap."

The prophet makes a show of turning his face upward and his mouth falling open in apparent shock. "Oh." Crowley scowls.

Castiel puts the half of a candy bar to his mouth and, between obliviously obnoxious crunching, says, "Assist him."

Pff. No. "Actually, Castiel, I had some work I needed to catch up on." Kevin grabs the nearest Word of God and as many papers as believable and storms out of the room. He calls down the hall, too, "Also, I know you don't know, but that stuff is horribad for you. Try something better." Cue the slam of the door to the bedroom Kevin never uses. Castiel, having stared off after the walking, ticking time bomb of trauma and teenage hormones, turns back to Crowley with a perplexed expression. Crowley sighs and nods in a way that means, "Yes, yes, kids these days, don't fuss, I'll help."

* * *

Texas. It seems like a lifetime or two since he's really been here, and honestly, he'd give anything not to have to be, now. _Bargaining_, Dean thinks, _that's one of the stages. Fuck._ He checks an address in Sam's little black book—_sorry, Sammy, call a spade a spade—_and then tucks it under his arm. He pushes off of the hood of the idling Impala, eases himself through the open door into the driver's seat, pulls back onto the road to accelerate past a green sign that reads "Kermit."

Ten minutes later, he's standing on a porch that looks like something he saw, once, in Stepford. Sill planters, deck furniture, a God damned sunflower welcome mat. It's all so domestic and homey, everything Dean thought Sam had, deep, deep down, despised. He's here on business, though. He knocks at the door and, after a distant "Just a minute," it opens not four inches. There's a man visible through that crack in the home, a particular grizzle, a certain look in his eyes, one Dean recognizes belongs to people who have seen some action. So, this must be the husband.

"Hi," he begins steadily. "My name is Dean Winchester. Is Amelia Richardson home?"

"No," Corporal Don Richardson drawls, slow, "You said Winchester?"

"Yeah. Sam was—" Oh, God, _was. _"—my little brother. That's actually why I'm here."

"Was, huh?" Conflict plays across Don's face for a minute, two, before he steps back, door swinging wider. "Come in, have a beer." He turns and invites Dean to follow with a wave, which Dean does. "Ame just got off her shift. She'll be here shortly."

"Thank you."

* * *

Everyone at the bunker skips lunch, because resourceful as he is, Crowley simply cannot make do with the deplorable state of stock in the pantry. Dinner, though, is grand.

Castiel handles his silverware with more ease than ordinary. He had noticed, navigating the labyrinthine aisles of the nearest supermarket with Crowley, that walking, too, felt less stiff, than before, more fluid. Without his grace, maybe, he's settling more fully into his vessel. Maybe...

Kevin glares across a perfectly prepared, succulent-looking roast at its maker, teeth gritted, fingers curled, white-knuckled, around a fork. "Pass the salt, please." It comes out as an unnoticeable growl. Crowley obliges, and when he does, Kevin snatches the shaker from him, holding it as menacingly as possible. "It's _kosher_." The remainder of the meal is conducted in the awkward silence to end all awkward silences.

While Crowley clears the table, Castiel asks, "Have you found anything that can help with our situation?"

Kevin nods, twirling that fork of his between his fingers. "Yeah, when I first looked over the Angel tablet, there was something titled 'Entry into Heaven' that would probably be useful." He puts the fork down. "I have my notes, here, somewhere..." And he's gone, disappeared into another room. Castiel distracts himself by exploring the articulation of his hands. Yes, he's certainly sinking into this skin. And there is a feeling he certainly isn't up to appreciating in depth. Kevin returns to the table and spreads out tablet, a few of the endless loose leafs of scribbled-over papers, and a notebook, one that some would describe as "well-loved" and mean "thoroughly used." Castiel's reverie is broken by a gasp.

There's Kevin, one finger in the opened book for reference, another hovering, trembling, over the tablet, and his face contorted in dismay. Or horror.

"This," he whispers, "This isn't..."

Crowley chooses then to make his reentry, wiping his hands on a pastel hand towel. Kevin leaps across the room in a split second and jabs a finger at Crowley's chest as though it were the barrel of a pistol.

"You did this!" he cries, "Where's the real tablet, you son of a bitch?" At all of Crowley's single raised eyebrow, Kevin takes the demon's uncharacteristically unpressed shirt in both hands and pull him up to spit dangerously, "If you've double crossed us again, I will not hesitate—" The hand towel flutters to the ground.

"Stop," Castiel interjects, rising from his seat, both hands on the table, "Crowley was in no position to do anything to the tablet, last night, and I have kept close watch since releasing him."

"Stop defending him, Cas!" Kevin leans until his face is centimeters from Crowley's. "I won't just sit here and let him hurt more people."

"Kevin—" Castiel begins, but it's in vain. Kevin pulls an angel blade from—from where?—and it presses close to Crowley's neck, ever so faintly grazing the skin. Crowley swallows heavily but, after eying the blade, stares straight into Kevin's eyes and... doesn't so much as move to defend himself. Kevin tenses, poised for the kill, but after a moment of nothing, throws the blade away with a roar of frustration.

"What are you playing at?" He chokes out, eyes prickling curiously. "What the hell do you want?"

Finally, Crowley speaks: "Forgiveness."

Kevin gapes at him, releases his shirt, and backs away. Floundering.

He continues, "I'm so sorry, Kevin. But I did not kill your mother."

* * *

Don takes a swig from his little brown bottle as Dean regales him with yet another tale from Sam's youth.

"Sounds like a good kid," he says post-swallow.

Dean smiles at his own drink. "Yeah, the best."

"I can see how he was such competition."

The smile vanishes. Don rises—from the couch that is extra large, Dean knows, because Sam sometimes _likes_ sleeping on couches, and it's hard to find one to fit his long frame—and walks, with a heavy limp, toward the large window across from it.

"Sorry, Dean, but with all due respect, all your brother is, to me, is evidence of my failure. As a soldier. As Amelia's husband."

Dean wants to tell him. Killing monsters, saving people. And guys like this prick will never even know. Dean wants to come clean, scream at someone, finally, that he and his brother are the reason there are fewer bumps in the night, and the least you could do is show some damned appreciation, thanks. He wants to say but also kind of just wants to punch him in his face until he stops making sounds.

Instead, he says, "Thanks for the beer, Don." He unwraps a too-tight grip from around the neck of it, leaves it on the coffee table. "Maybe I'll find Amelia some other time." Stands to make the quickest egress possible.

But standing the doorway, between Dean and freedom to cuss and hit things and let off steam thirty-odd years in the making, stands Amelia Richardson. For all the world, she looks terrified.

"Are you him?"

* * *

"What?" Yeah. Kevin is definitely shrieking.

Crowley folds his arms across his chest, looking anywhere, now, but at Kevin. "I said I didn't kill her. She was..." His face scrunches uncomfortably. "Too valuable a bargaining chip." Kevin looks between relieved and confused and revolted. "Couldn't just throw it away. Thought to trot that particular pony out a bit later."

"But she... you... you killed Channing over the tablet and... and me."

More discomfort in Crowley. "Yes, yes. Valuable enough to hurt you, but not enough threat to keep you there. Obviously." Crowley looks sick, in fact. Sick... at himself? "And after you'd had that rather convenient hallucination and were convinced of your mother's realized mortality, relief would be worth more to you than avoidance of pain. Mummy Dearest is alive and nominally well."

"Nominally?"

"You're familiar with my brand of... accommodation."

"Oh."

"I am sorry."

* * *

Elsewhere in the bunker, Castiel has absconded with Kevin's angel blade and tablet. The blade, he recognizes as Metatron's, and the tablet, as far as he can tell, is legitimate. What would make Kevin react that viscerally to the tablet? Then, there's a noise, and Castiel isn't alone in this remote room deep in the subterranean levels of the safe house of the Men of Letters.

"Castiel." A voice he hasn't heard in what seems so very long.

Castiel turns to face the last person he would expect to see here, now.

"Hello, Chuck."

* * *

Kevin feels... shame, maybe? He isn't committed, doesn't believe this wholly enough to take Crowley's story and turn it into his wrong. But it's... something. "So, you didn't fake the tablet?"

Crowley pours himself a glass of providence in the form of some impressively aged scotch. "No." He extends an offer to pour one for Kevin, but it goes unnoticed. "That thing is as real as you are. Though something _does _seem different about... you."

Castiel looms about the door frame and announces, "I can perhaps explain that. Maybe." He steps to the side to introduce a short man with what looks like five years of perpetual stubble wearing a sheer white gown. Crowley looks instantly intrigued. "Kevin Tran, prophet of the lord, meet Chuck Shurley." He raises a hand, though he doesn't know it, perfectly emulating Vanna White. "Prophet of the lord."

Chuck adopts a shy smile and waves, briefly. "Hi, kid. I've got some bad news."

* * *

The last light until he's out of Kermit turns green, and Dean pulls through it feeling like the pilgrim finally shrugging off his burden. Mostly. This one, anyway. Dean had told Amelia about Sam. She'd cried, for a time, then, thanked him. Then, he left.

Now, everything feels weird. Dean is wondering how many people will be told when he kicks it, how many people will care to be told. As more and more asphalt falls under Baby's wheels, he's a million miles away. The silence he'd fought off at every moment on the drive down here ringing all around him, Dean, lost as he is in thought, doesn't even reach for the radio. No. He's thinking about Amelia.

Sam is gone. And she cried for him. And who will cry for Dean?

"Sammy," Dean says, grip tightening on the steering wheel, "I always told you there'd be a trail of broken hearts behind you, one day." He doesn't know why he's doing this. "I hope you believe me, now." Is he even listening, where he is? Heaven? "You probably could've had it real good, with her." Things never did work out for them, though. Either of them. "Maybe you were right to get out of the game, when you did." Of course, Sam was always right. "I just wish I'd seen that, then." And what does a Winchester have, without a fortune in regrets? "You just... you just wait on me, Sam. I'll see you on the other side."

He's across the Oklahoma border before he realizes just where he's going, but it's exactly where he needs to be.

* * *

A migraine. Again. Of course, they'd become so common, just before—oh. Right.

These trees shouldn't be here, looking so bare of leaf, so drained of color, so lacking in life as they are. The clouds shouldn't be hanging, there, above the trees, heavy, pregnant with never divulged rain or suffering. The rocks shouldn't be nestling close to one another, huddling together for warmth or protection or just out of sheer loneliness.

Sam has been here before. He sits up, one hand going to his forehead, as if it could hold together the divergent halves his skull must be for a headache of this magnitude. Apart from everything looking like it's been passed through the painful end of Photoshop, he feels it, the urge to roam, to seek, to fight, to kill. And the purity. He's in Purgatory, again. He scrambles to his feet with alarming strength—apparently, apart from the headache, his worldly ills haven't followed him.

_What am I doing here? _He should've gone to heaven—_or, admittedly, hell_. But the monster box, in any event, no.

"'What am I doing here?' he asks himself." The voice echoes all around. "'I should be in Never, Never Land. How did I wind up in the campgrounds of Silent Hill?'" Nasal and smug and face-punchable.

"Well, don't worry, Sasquatch. I'm here to answer all or most of your questions."


	3. The Chips Fall Where They May

The tablet feels the same. Same weight, same cool, smooth surface, save for the etched marks over its face. When Kevin looks at it, though, the headaches no longer come, the headaches he's come to think of as familiar, as productive, as... reassuring. Divine understanding doesn't flood his consciousness, no minor spiritual ecstasy builds just below his chest, and it just feels like... absence. Abandonment.

"You cannot read it," Castiel asks, tone ever so slightly softer than ordinary, "Can you?" Kevin shakes his head to confirm and hands the tablet to the former angel. The tablet is then turned over to this Chuck, who is now dressed in Kevin's oldest, most ill fitting clothes, in lieu of the gown, and looks... just... at home in them. Chuck nods. Cas continues, "It makes sense. There can be only one active prophet on earth in a given time. Chuck has returned to earth and, as he has precedence, seniority, the title has reverted back to him."

And Chuck himself is just giggling softly to himself for a few moments. When he notices everyone's gaze, he scoffs, "Oh, come on. That's totally Highlander."

* * *

The Mervin family has operated this gas station since 1930, and seventeen-year-old Frankie takes his personal contribution to the family business very seriously. And if his fetish for vintage muscle cars has been more or less stroked regularly since his Dad gave him after-school shifts for a little more pocket money, well, that is just icing on the metaphorical cake.

The black '67 Impala, hard-top, four-door, windows down in the summer heat, he sees coming a mile a way, _that_ is three layers of that cake, and like in one of Frankie's only slightly less than literal wet dreams, it turns into _his _lot to fuel up. So, he has to shoo away a flock of the black suits (that, in the past couple of weeks, have been clogging this town's gills) away from the... well, everything; it's an infinitesimal price to pay for the honor, the privilege—The Impala rolls to a stop in front of a pump and the engine heaves a sigh as it falls to rest. Frankie jogs up to the opening door as out climbs a tall, rough man that looks nothing but perfect for his vehicle.

Frankie preempts, "Premium, sir?"

Distractedly, the man nods, then, moseys on into the shopfront, leaving the teenager alone with this gorgeous piece of machinery. Of art. If it was two years earlier, Frankie might have (would definitely have) been tempted to take her for a little private ride around the block. But Frankie learned his lesson, then, and now, he contents himself with holding the hose and pumping the gas. The time is enough.

The guy pays inside, walks back out with a honey bun hanging from his mouth counting out bills, then, tucking the rest into his back pocket. When he comes close enough, Frankie returns the pump to its holster, and the man hands him a couple of fives. Score.

"Thank you, sir!" he says, and before the owner of this beauteous beast can close the door, though, Frankie snags his attention: "She's beautiful."

He nods, settling into the seat more fully. "I hope so. I've rebuilt her enough times to get it right."

Frankie's eyes widen, a bit. "Rebuilt what?"

The man grins, smug. "Just about everything." He extends a hand from his seat. "Dean."

Frankie takes his hand and shakes it. "Frankie Mervin. My folks run this place. This is all your work?" He runs a hand along the door frame. "It's good. This could definitely be a show piece."

Dean chuckles, harsh as whiskey. "Thanks, kid."

He shrugs that off. "Do you come out this way, often?"

"Too often. I was born over in—" And Dean is distracted by a balding man in an exquisite three-piece suit stopping in front of the Impala to stare into the sun.

Frankie leans away from the door of the Impala and raises a fist to him. "Hey, feathers. Move it!" Back to Dean. "Sorry, sir. They're just everywhere, these days. Don't know what to do with them anymore than they know what to do with themselves."

But Dean is frowning, now, and he grunts out, "Yeah, I hear you." He closes the door and kicks the engine on. "Thanks for the gas, Frankie."

Frankie steps back, but offers, "If you're ever in JC, again, come on by. I know some guys that'd love to get a load of your girl."

Once the Wall Street looking creep is out of the way, Dean drives on.

* * *

Chuck is always nervous. Uncertain. Discomposed. But public speaking, invariably, makes it worse.

"Yeah," he starts, fiddling with the collar of his (well, Kevin's) shirt, "Things aren't looking so good, right now." Castiel, Crowley, Kevin all sit around the conference tablet, eyes boring holes into Chuck. "I'm talking universal paradigm shift, next-big-bang big, here." Crowley sips from the glass that sits so comfortably in his curled fingers. Chuck wrote those fingers. He knows. And what he wouldn't give for a drink, himself, right now.

Castiel takes over. God bless him. "Human souls are not entering heaven."

Crowley cocks an eyebrow. "That's all well to say," he says, gesturing with his drink, "But they _are _going somewhere."

And Chuck nods, leaning over the table, hands planting themselves firmly on it for support. "Purgatory." His kingdom for a drink.

* * *

His head is reeling. Sam treads haltingly through the prickly underbrush through which he's being lead, not because his legs, long as they are, aren't up to the task, but because this information is a whole lot to take in. And also, for such a small guy, Gabriel's vessel can really move.

"But—" Sam dodges a branch Gabriel has let swing back toward him, "—What does Metatron gain from turning away souls from heaven's gates?"

The trickster replies, navigating the rough terrain effortlessly, "I dunno, Sambo. Control? Privacy?" Over a log, under a low hanging branch which forces Sam to stoop. "Couldn't tell you. Yet, anyway."

"'Yet'?" Sam scoffs. "What, are you eavesdropping on Heaven?"

Gabriel stops dead, turns around, arms spread wide, and shouts in the most put-on, racially insensitive accent he can, "Bitch, I might be." It takes two seconds of blank bitchface to realize Sam doesn't get. Gabriel scowls, turning and marching onward. "I've literally been under a rock for five years, and still, I'm more in the loop than you."

Finally they slow their pace. The archangel pulls a particularly dense section of brush aside and waves Sam on. Sam, for his part, had wondered what happened to angels when they died. In a relatively tiny clearing past this makeshift veil, Gabriel has apparently brought Sam to much more than a conclusion.

In a relatively small clearing, there are possibly a thousand, maybe half again, of the things, huddled around fires, clustered about many a wooden lean-to, all of them looking worn and hunted. Honestly, they probably are.

Sam is struck speechless, looking around at them all. When he notices Gabriel has followed him, he turns and has to ask, "How did you find them all?"

Vessel's chest swelling with pride, Gabriel replies, "I didn't." He leads Sam through the thronging crowd, paying no heed to the bumps and brushes and breathless squeezing from the people about, apparently knowing where he's going, so the taller of the two just follows him. "They found me. I just knew what to do with them. It was harder to deal with all the humans." Ah. So, that explains the numbers. And man are there numbers."They aren't supposed to be here, but I can't just send them back to earth."

Sam doesn't say anything until it's clear Gabriel is waiting outside a particular shack to be asked for clarification. He clears his throat. "Uh, why not?"

Gabriel puts on an incredulous face before continuing. "Oh, Sammy, that sort of mayhem is sooo not what it needs." He ducks into the rough-hewn cottage, and Sam ducks_ further_ to enter. It's so dark, inside, too. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love mayhem, but what with the angels falling and suddenly have to support a few hundred million more bodies per continent."

That's... that can't be right. "Hundreds of millions?" Sam sputters. "Then how are there so few here?"

Gabriel lights a candle and it throws faint, warm light around the room. "Well, Sammy, there's... a catch, to all this." He waves a hand toward the door. "All those angels out there? A lot of them are from long after I made it here. The ones from before, they were all so heavily factioned, Lucifer vs. God, Lucifer vs. Michael, I had to enforce one rule: you get the hell along or you get the hell out. A lot of them preferred to keep fighting everything and their brothers out there than to call a truce." Gabriel falls into a rickety chair with a melancholy frown. "Then, when humans started showing up, a lot of the host refused to share space, and I couldn't just let the squishy things stay out there. So even more left."

Sam squats in a corner, when no seat is offered to him, his long arms able to reach across the short distance between the archangel and himself and, slightly awkwardly, pat him on the shoulder. "You did the right thing, though."

Gabriel nods. Then, several more candles are lit.

"One thing, though," Sam mentions as Gabriel begins to pore over what looks like a hand-drawn map. "How do you know so much about what's going on in heaven and on earth?" And he could recognize that smug, self-satisfied grin anywhere, the one that screams, "Oh, how little you know me."

"I have a mole, Sam, and I don't mean a beauty mark."

Gabriel would bet money that Sam will never guess who.

* * *

Chuck sits and silence falls on the bunker. Castiel, as he does in many things, breaks it: "The angels are in shock. Even without their wings, their grace, angels know enough magic, have enough military training to be a devastating force against any threat. Their grief is the only thing that has prevented them from organizing a full-on assault of heaven. Or on earth." Cas sighs. "I'm not yet sure who they will blame for this." Which means it might be him. "Unfortunately, this grief will also remove diplomatic options. Kevin and I have discussed our options, and we agree that the best course of action is to find a way into heaven before they launch an attack and give them a target, at least long enough to set the human souls right."

Kevin just looks miserable, head cradled in both hands, shoulders hunched. Distress, all over. And so, he mutters, "Snag—I can't read the tablet anymore. I have my notes, so, Chuck will have somewhere to start, but I'm just..."

Crowley frowns and, after a moment of fruitless staring between the two, kicks Chuck under the table, who then pipes up. "Uh, Kevin, I'm terrible with other people's notes. I'm going to need your help." _You're not useless. Because that's what you were going to say._ Kevin accepts that in silence, and the other three don't make much more noise.

So, Castiel rises and leaves the table to their respective thoughts. The clank and grind of heavy metal says he's stepped outside. Chuck takes hold of Kevin's shoulder and jerks his head toward the library, and Kevin nods. They both take their own leave. Which leaves two: Crowley and that lovely bottle of scotch he's hidden under the table.


	4. Through the Cracks

Catching up with Missouri never takes long, one of the perks of being a mind reader. No, visits to her take ages because she always insists that a distant friend stay for dinner, even if they've arrived at eight that morning. Ordinarily, the time just slips by with her unique gift of gab, but Dean can't help but feel that she's been awfully silent.

They're in the garden (one by both bribe and threat) when Dean finally has to ask, "What's wrong?" and he knows she knows what he means, because she's a freaking psychic, and they always know.

When she answers with, "Oh, nothing, sugar," avoiding eye contact, Dean throws his spade down and fixes her with a face he knows would rival Sam's better ones. Not that that thought hurts more than others.

"Okay, no," he grumbles, hot, sweating, uncomfortable, and utterly _done_. "Nothing isn't wrong." He stands, brushes the dirt off his jeans, and stomps off toward the pristine, fairly recently whitewashed front porch.

"Dean Winchester," comes Missouri's suddenly assertive, much more familiar scolding, "If you get a speck of dirt on my porch, you're going to feel a wooden spoon on your backside for a year." There we go. Missouri joins Dean in front of the porch, face scrunched with displeasure, though definitely not all at Dean himself. She's intimidating, Deans more than a few inches in height over her notwithstanding.

"You're right," she concedes, practically shaking, now. "Nothing isn't wrong." She waves her arms about wildly, and surely someone in that car that passes stares. "_Everything_ is wrong. John's boy is dead. The spirits are all wailing out. All these poor, broken angels around, they're in agony." Missouri pokes a finger at Dean's chest. Hard. "And I feel all of it. Every despairing soul, every cry for help, every single bit of misery is being hauled in by my gift, and I feel it all." Her voice cracks, and tears form in her warm eyes, and Dean feels just so guilty. "And even with this power, I can't do nothing about it, Dean. Nothing." She takes a shuddering breath to keep from sobbing openly, looking down, now, and... defeated.

And around her, the sun shines just the same, sweltering rays bearing down oppressively on the innocently suburban neighborhood. Dean only just now notices how very, very much the same everything looks, save for a few angels hanging out on strangers' stoops or trudging down the sidewalks. Dean puts an arm around Missouri—how she needs it—and leads her up the white stairs into her house.

"Come on," he says. "I think we should take a break." Missouri nods. "Get some tea or something. Just until it's a little cooler."

Late that evening, when the gardening and dinner and a well-appreciated round of pie is over, Dean heads for the local cemetery and strolls among the headstones until he finds two empty lots side by side. He can't help thinking, if things were different, then, Sam and he might be buried like this, beside one another. Even if they didn't share a heaven, he thinks, they could at least share this. Instead, Dean is alone, here, and the moon and stars casting shadows from the grave markers all watch him suffer in silence.

Missouri, just before he left, told him, "I know you think you have to shoulder the burden yourself, but there are times when we all can use a hand. You're always helping others. Sometimes, you have to let them help you." Well, where is his help, now? Out among the graves, with the nightlife buzzing through the air under the pale starlight, who is here for him? The obvious answer comes to mind, and it sticks, irrefutable, in his head.

And since it's the only answer he's got, Dean gets out of the cemetery, into the Impala, and back on the road.

* * *

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but Kevin's won medals and trophies by it, so he comes out with the question as soon as Chuck and he are alone. "So, what was with the dress?"

Chuck grins uneasily, sitting at a corner of the far table where Kevin's indicated the angel tablet and the bulk of his notes are. "Well, in heaven, prophets are sort of given a dress code, hokey as it looks. We have our own section. It's pretty nifty."

Kevin is staring forlornly at what is basically gobbledegook in stone, to him, now, rather intently, so it takes him a moment to register the implication. "... You can get into heaven?" It comes out a bit louder than intended.

The other prophet merely nods, using this opportunity to snag the tablet from Kevin and look over it. And he doesn't even squint or anything. "Gabriel could shove me through, at times, whenever." He notes Kevin's incredulity and offers, "It's not a finessed act. Gabe only did it every few months so I could report, and we'd alternate my time spent in heaven and on earth. They might notice a gaggle of their most wanted falling into their metaphorical disembodied laps." And back to the tablet.

Kevin frowns. Partly because of the quick dashing of that meager hope and partly because Chuck doesn't seem to be getting _anything_ from the tablet. No headache. No nausea. Nothing. "Dude, how are you handling that?" When Chuck only gives him a confused look, he explains, "The first time I looked at a tablet for more than five minutes, I thought I was going to black out."

Chuck nods. "Yeah, but I mean, this is nothing compared to the visions, right?"

"... Visions?"

Chuck's face goes blank. "You don't get visions?" Kevin shakes his head. Chuck slams a fist into the table. "Of course, you don't get visions. Because I'm the only person who could have that luck."

Kevin looks away for a moment, then, a very relevant portion of his notes catches his eye, a portion which he points out to Chuck, giving chapter and line number for the important passage. Chuck finds it quickly enough and begins transcribing into his own notes. When he's finished that passage, the younger prophet asks, "So, you could like see the future?"

"Kind of, kid." He rubs the back of his neck. "It's more like I was forced to. And it was always about the friggin' Winchesters."

Kevin chuckles. "That must have sucked. Still, I think it must have come in handy."

"Once or twice." A wry grin forms on Chuck's face. "But nobody ever stays psychic for long, here."

* * *

"You're doing the right thing."

The surreptition of it makes Crowley leap in his seat and _almost_ spill his alcohol. He whips around, looking for the source. Of course, there's no one in the room. He doesn't know the voice, but it sounded so... close. He eyes the bottle of whisky suspiciously before pouring himself another couple of shots as apology for ever suspecting. He downs them both with relish.

"Just so you know."

Crowley feels his skin prickling. This can't be good.

* * *

Castiel hears the car before he sees it, around three, and when he does see it, he straightens up from leaning against the door to the bunker, shoulders square and expression stony. The Impala parks itself without ceremony, and from the driver's door, out steps Dean Winchester, looking guilty (as mentioned, Winchester) and yet relieved. The two men (because at least, now, they _are_ both men) stand apart from one another, just looking at the other, unsure of what to say, if they should say something, or what to do, if they ought to.

Castiel speaks first. "Dean. I thought you were... as you put it, done."

Dean's face falls, and he admits, "Yeah, so did I." But he finally moves, closing the distance between ex-angel and hunter and instigating a tight, desperate hug. "I thought you were, too."

Castiel hesitates in the embrace before finally returning it. "So did I, Dean."

They stay like that for a moment before Dean shudders and Castiel swears he feels something wet on his neck. Then, he hears a muffled whimper of, "He's really gone, Cas."

And this is certainly not how Castiel wanted to tell him but, rubbing Dean's back in what he recalls is comforting to humans, Castiel confesses, "I'm afraid it's worse than that." When Dean turns his red, puffy face toward Cas's, the angel just leads him inside. Tonight would be a longer one than it already had been.


End file.
